Royals on tour

Was yesterday's royal drive on behalf of the domestic tourism industry part of a subtle plot to marginalise further the monarchy in the era of 'President' Blair? The Queen's our Head of State.

Yesterday she toured Legoland. Prince Charles went to Scotland, Anne to the South Coast, Andrew to the Lake District, Edward to South Wales, Sophie to the West Country, the Duke of Gloucester to Leicestershire and Princess Alexandra to Ulster.

My royal source says: 'If the real object is to drum up tourism here, they should be sent abroad - to America in particular. It's a typical Robin Janvrin (the Queen's private secretary) stunt. He loves themed royal events which he thinks makes the Royal Family relevant and he's always keen to suck up to No 10.'

What's really going on re the euro? Here's some Cabinet-level guidance: 'Tony Blair thinks he can talk Britain into it but isn't mad enough to believe he can do that before the next election. Gordon Brown has promised him to soften us up so they'll win one (referendum) afterwards. Crucially, Mr Brown doesn't want Mr Blair holding a referendum and losing it. That ruins his dream of his becoming Prime Minister. Hence the smoke-andmirrors trick about five tests.'

Two of duty-free tycoon Robert Miller's three daughters are getting divorces.

Alexandra, 29, who married Austrian prince Alexander von Furstenberg, and Pia, 35, (also pictured), wife of oil billionaire Christopher Getty, have been consoling themselves while shopping in Paris's Avenue Montaigne. My source spotted them in Prada, loaded with shopping bags and laughing fit to burst. Little is free, duty or otherwise, when it comes to the Miller gals. Isn't life grand?

On a recent edition of BBC2's Never Mind The Buzzcocks, presenter Mark Lamarr ended the show by saying: 'I ran into Alan Titchmarsh in reception recently.

Forget what you see on television. He's a tw*t.' What can gardening star Mr Titchmarsh have done to upset metropolitan trendy Mr Lamarr?

With two Boisdale restaurants in London (at Bishopsgate and Belgravia) specialising in high-class Scottish food and jazz, and negotiations in hand to buy a vineyard in Languedoc, clan chief's son Ranald Macdonald of Clanranald, 39, threatens to rival his upstart, hamburger-selling American cousins. Ranald got into catering working at Pepita's restaurant, St Andrews, while studying at university there in the 1980s. Sometimes he ate leftovers.

He says: 'I had a rule. The unfinished dish had to be a woman's and she had to be snoggable.'

Priapic Tory MP Boris Johnson (with historian Count Nickolai Tolstoy) proposes the motion: 'This House would rather be European than American' at the Oxford Union tomorrow. Opposing them are Tory MPs Sir Teddy Taylor and John Redwood. The ever-modest Mr Johnson says: 'I will make a masterful, Eurosceptical case for this proposition.' Email: